Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome (23 page)

Agrippina gripped my hand as we looked down at the white stone, and I could feel her warmth course up my arm and into my body.  She practically glowed with energy and excitement, and I found its power daunting.  It felt strangely real, as though she was literally emanating a type of radiation.  And it seemed quite familiar, but since I couldn’t explain it, I ignored it.

“In which direction should we travel first, Jacob?”  Agrippina asked, her voice melodious and enriching, focusing my attention and tightening my resolve.

I looked up, taking note of our position within a residential district of indistinct repute and without much character.  It was just one unremarkable neighborhood among hundreds in the city, filled with square buildings with blank façades.  Residents were everywhere, crowding the narrow streets, pushing on the perimeter of Agrippina’s Praetorians that encased us like a solid wall.  The residents were unhelpful and Agrippina’s Praetorians were also silent, offering no advice on how to act on Agrippina’s question.

I raised a hand and pointed south.  “Let’s head around the back side of the hill first.  Maybe we’ll find something near the Temple of Lupercal.”

Agrippina nodded and flicked her hand, commanding the Praetorians to move out.  “A sound theory.  My Praetorians know the boundaries of the
pomerium
well; they will lead us along its path.”

I didn’t bother to respond as we fell into step with her Praetorians as they pushed the throng of civilians around us aside, carving a path for us.  We continued along at an even clip, those who refused to get out of our way ending up on the ground or pushed out of the way.  Agrippina graciously helped the first woman who fell, but aided no other after her, and I didn’t bother either.

We were just rounding the southern tip of the hill, the
Circus Maximus
off to our left and stretching for what seemed like miles along the back side of the Palatine Hill, when I realized we were already quite close to the Temple of Lupercal.  When I’d first found myself exiting that small temple years ago, I’d emerged from a secondary entrance thanks to a recent renovation project that had deposited us near the Caelian Hill.  That entrance had been closed soon after the cave had collapsed, and I suspected the main entrance today existed exactly where it would be should I ever return home.

I glanced at Agrippina as we walked, noticing for the first time how purposeful her stride was.  She surged onward, her shoulders hunched and her head sticking forward with silent purpose.  It was a surprising posture for someone I thought determined but patient to discover answers in a timely, if not pertinent, manner.

She noticed my attention and looked at me with a hard expression.  “Do you sense something, Jacob?”

I narrowed my eyes.  “Sense something?  No, not really.  Why do you ask it like that?”

“It is simply how you appeared,” she answered, not missing a single stride.

The tightness around my eyes slackened, and I felt that was a pretty good answer, although I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t.  Again, deep down, a questioning curiosity and innate distrust of those with things to hide bubbled its way into my mind, ordering me to push my line of inquiry, but then I felt the orb at my waist and thought better of it

“Sorry,” I replied.  “I was just curious if more had been excavated within the Temple of Lupercal after I left Rome last time.  It’s where Caligula found the blue orb, so I thought, maybe, you found the red orb later.”

Agrippina threw up a hand and her Praetorians halted.  She stopped too, but I almost stumbled after trying to stop just as quickly myself.  She reached out both hands to steady my shoulders, smiling an ineffably cute and innocent smile at me.  “Jacob, for what reason would I have to conceal it from you if I had?”  She asked as she rubbed my arms.  “That is an idea with little sense.  No, the temple was sealed by Caligula once everything you had lost there had been recovered, and I have respected his decree.”

I worked my mouth to the left, considering her words.  “You’re not lying?”

Her smile returned.  “I assure you, Jacob.  I am not.  It is
your
destiny to find the red orb, not mine.”

I smiled at her reassurance and held her gaze for a few seconds, searching her face for any sign of deception but finding none.  She seemed aware of my inspection and allowed me to analyze her for a moment, but then she finally pulled away and ordered her troops to move out.  Once we were all moving again, I found myself feeling considerably better about this whole thing.  Maybe everything would work out perfectly well after all.  Agrippina had certainly opened my eyes to bigger and better things before, so maybe it was finally my time to just reach out and take it.

***

Marching past the
Circus Maximus
had only taken a few minutes.  It certainly was a large structure, although not quite as imposing as I’d always thought it’d be, but despite the grand arena’s majestic, soaring, and lengthy façade, it was the last thing on my mind as we continued along the path, my senses keen, my situational awareness honed, searching for… something.  I still didn’t know what I was looking for, but Agrippina was convinced that I’d, loosely translated, “know it when I saw it.”  Her confidence was invigorating, to be sure, but it seemed completely misplaced as we approached the Temple of Lupercal, the place I assumed had to be some kind of hotbed of paranormal or cosmic activity.

Our Praetorian escorts stopped outside the temple as though already ordered to do so but I paid them no mind.  I simply turned and faced the temple, which looked more like a hobbit hole than anything else.  Built into the side of the hill, the only part of it I could see was its rectangular entranceway that was flanked by a pair of simple, Doric columns.  Like an Egyptian tomb buried beneath one of the great pyramids, a staircase would lead worshipers deeper into the hill before entering the domed temple within, and beneath that, the secret pre-ancient temple I had arrived in.

Its purpose was still a mystery since Caligula had sealed it and Agrippina had left it sealed, but I hadn’t seen anything like it in my hallucination, so I assumed it wasn’t important.  Perhaps it was just something Romulus’ supporters had crafted for him later.  Or something built in the early years following his death.  I didn’t know, and
certainly
didn’t care.

I placed my hands on my hips and waited, hoping something, anything, would come to me.  But nothing did.  I worked my jaw left and then right in frustration, trying to will a clue into existence, but when nothing happened, I dropped my arms, feeling my right one brush against the strap of my shoulder bag.  I glanced down, noticing it at my side, and remembered I had the orb within.

Willing to try anything, I reached into the bag and carefully removed it.  I no longer bothered trying to avoid skin contact anymore, as it no longer seemed to do anything, and when I brought it out to eye level, I was once again met with the swirling white clouds over a blue background, making the orb appear much like a miniature planet with circulating weather patterns.

I shook my head and tried to focus, closing my eyes so that I could divert all my attention to the orb and its mystical and mind altering energies that I felt even now but had grown resistant to.  No longer did it call out to me, beckoning me, enticing me.  Now, it seemed little more than a pretty trinket of great value, one that soothed my seething emotions, a function I often appreciated in recent days.

Yet, try as I did, nothing happened.

The orb remained inert, the cave that housed the Temple of Lupercal remained silent, and I felt no different than I had a few minutes ago.  Opening my eyes, I confirmed that everything seemed the same.  In a bout of frustration, I thrust the orb back into my satchel and started to move.

Agrippina caught up a second later.  “You feel no different?”

“No,” I confirmed, not in the mood for further conversation.

“Most odd,” she said, as though thinking out loud.  “I was certain the blue orb would draw you to the red one.  It was the key to entering Merlin’s realm, and I thought it would do the same today…”

Even though I was verging on hopelessness, the bleakness in Agrippina’s usually chipper voice helped me find it within myself to act as a supportive force for once, and I found myself wrapping an arm around her shoulders supportively.  “That’s quitter talk.  We haven’t even gone around the
pomerium
yet.”

She nodded and leaned her head against the side of my chest, and pressed a hand against my stomach as we walked.  “We are a good pair, Jacob.  Always so supportive in a time of great need.  I do hope you choose to stay.”

I looked away from her, realizing how odd it was that I hadn’t yet come to a decision concerning her earlier offer.  As I’d thought on it, trying to formulate a definitive answer for her, I found that I couldn’t give her one. In my mind, the choice remained, although I was starting to lean in the direction of staying with Agrippina, ruling over the grandest empire to ever grace human civilization.

I squeezed her gently before I removed my arm from around her shoulder.  She looked up at me and smiled, but I couldn’t return it.  Something pulled me away from her.  Not an external distraction but an internal one.  A pair of small, green orbs floating in the back of my mind haloed by the same dark hair I often saw, a visual cue that continued to flit about in my mind annoyingly.

I only hoped such distractions would fade in time.

***

I didn’t want to admit it, but each and every steps seemed more embarrassing than the last.

We were just now entering the
Forum Romanum
, which was between the Palatine and Capitoline Hill and
not
near Romulus’ walls.  I didn’t think the episode I’d seen in Merlin’s vision could possibly have happened there, but Agrippina had insisted that we at least poke around.  I’d agreed, and now the rectangular, enormous, and beautiful Basilica Julia off to our left and the diminutive but still opulent Temple of Castor and Pollux came into view off to our right.  Both of these structures existed two thousand years from now in a state of decay, but still they persisted.  I ignored them, much as I ignored everything, too distracted to take in much detail of the social life going on around us.  None of it seemed to matter anymore, as I was sure life would continue on as it always did.  Life, it seemed, would go on without me.  Whether I found the red orb or not, life in Rome would continue, meaningless and empty, destined to fall one day and become irrelevant.

It would influence a few laws in America and Great Britain, bore seventh graders to tears, and become an expensive tourist trap, but other than those few things, it would become useless, just another fallen empire no one cared about.  It was a concept that gave me serious pause, an excuse to give Agrippina’s offer serious consideration.  I’d had no desire to rule the world before; the exact opposite in fact.  I’d wanted to remain as removed from Roman society as I could, despite being constantly pulled into it by people like Claudius, Caligula, Galba, Vespasian, and, of course Agrippina. 

I no longer saw a point in resisting.

I shoved my hands in my pockets as I thought, and followed behind Agrippina so that even with our looming failure, at least I could stare at her ass as we walked in circles.  That, at the very least, was something worth doing in Ancient Rome, as I’d seen few better in all of antiquity.  I was so distracted by it, in fact, that I barely noticed a trio of Praetorians off to my left fall to the ground when they were apparently attacked by a small band of disgruntled Romans.  I looked up and glanced at them, watching apathetically as another Praetorian skewered one of the attackers through the chest while another pair scared off the remaining few.

The incident was over in seconds, and everything went back to normal, and no one seemed to care, least of all Agrippina, who hadn’t even turned to see what was going on.  I, however, gave the murdered individual one last look, not necessarily caring who he was or what had enticed him to attack us.  I craned my neck to keep him in sight as long as possible, but when it was no longer possible, I turned back to set my eyes on Agrippina’s beatific posterior again, settling in for further boredom and a lack of accomplishment. 

I shoved my hands back in my pockets and basically spent the next few minutes analyzing every curve of Agrippina’s body.  I was so distracted by it, in fact, that I barely noticed a trio of Praetorians off to my left fall to the ground when they were apparently attacked by a small band of disgruntled Romans.  I looked up and glanced at them, watching apathetically as another Praetorian skewered one of the attackers through the chest while another pair scared off the remaining few.

The incident was over in a minute, and everything went back to normal.  I glanced at the dead man for only a second, observing that he was dirty and wore ragged clothes, quite probably identifying him as a common street urchin, beggar, or perhaps a poor thief.  I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering what could have caused him to turn so violent so quickly, but decided it was irrelevant.

I returned my eyes to their inspection of Agrippina’s backside, but then realized I’d seen pretty much all I’d needed or wanted to see there already and ignored her as well, but in that exact moment, she turned her head completely around to look at me, her long, golden, curly locks swirling around her shoulders at the movement.